


Narrow visions of autonomy.

by werepope (quiteparadise)



Series: 2014 Advent Calendar for a Filthy-Minded Athiest [15]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Malikxcore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 15:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2778557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiteparadise/pseuds/werepope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's this band that Liam knows.  He'd rather not.</p><p>(AKA: Zayn is hella punk.)</p><p> </p><p>Advent calendar challenge: Power outage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Narrow visions of autonomy.

Liam is friends with a band. He uses the term loosely. Hell, he uses both terms loosely.

Prizefighters is a grungy throwback punk band that he produced an EP for. Which basically means that they paid him a few hundred quid and in turn he let them use his cobbled together recording equipment for a weekend. Louis hooked him up with them because they needed an EP, Liam needed money, and Louis is friends with everyone. Months after the fact and Liam gets regular texts from them about sales of their seven-inch, upcoming shows, and where they're drinking that night.

To be fair to Prizefighters, Liam hasn't exactly been dragged along unwillingly into their company. He does turn up to their shows when they're a short bus ride away. He even occasionally takes an invitation to go to one of their rat trap flats and have a few beers. He likes them. Sometimes despite them.

But Liam also likes Drake and Rihanna and Justin Timberlake. He wears snapbacks and Reeboks and jeans that have never been puked on. It doesn't matter how many trashed up parties or punk shows he goes to. He's never going to fit in with them or their friends. And he's okay with that. He doesn't want to be like them. It's just weird being the freak in a room full of people with purple hair, homemade tattoos, and hepatitis.

He doesn't want to fit in with them, but he doesn't not want to, either.

He blames Zayn.

Zayn is the bassist. Liam liked him from go. Or, at least, he was fascinated with Zayn from go. He's got a mohawk that Liam has never seen spiked, a tattoo on his forearm of the Hulk's fist giving a big green bird, and the best smile Liam has ever seen. Zayn's astounding, and Liam can't quite seem to gather up even the desire to pull himself away from that.

Quite frankly, he's fucked.

He keeps his distance, though. Sometimes he even thinks it's working. But then he gives in and goes to a show or a party, and Zayn is so much more in person than he ever manages to be in Liam's head. It feels like starting over every time, because every inch that Liam creeps away gets destroyed so easily by Zayn's laugh or the way his hair falls in his face or the pressure of their knees when they sit side-by-side on a sagging couch.

Liam's making a real try of it this time, though. It's been two weeks since he saw any of them. He hasn't even seen Louis for fear of him wielding some Zayn-centric anecdote. He is cutting himself off. A month at the least. Give himself some time to heal. And maybe at the end of that month, seeing Zayn won't ratchet up his blood pressure.

He forgets that he's not the only factor in this simple equation.

He isn't home from work for more than an hour, just settling into his couch for a mini-marathon of _Wallander_ , when there's a knock at his door. It's so unheard of that he has no expectation whatsoever of what's going to be on the other side, but seeing Zayn on his doorstep still manages to surprise him. It's not entirely pleasant.

Zayn is wearing the same ratty hoodie and denim jacket he always does. The same beat to hell Converse All Stars. Possibly even the same jeans. Harder to tell there, but likely. Zayn doesn't have much in the way of earthly possessions.

"Hey," he says, because staring at him for this long is probably creepy, and because Zayn himself doesn't seem inclined to break the silence first.

"Hey. Mind if I...?"

"Yeah. Sure. Absolutely." Liam does not trip over his own shoes as he steps back to let Zayn in. It's a very close call, though.

"I was crashing with Dunn, but his power's out. Bills or whatever. He's gonna stay with Tabby but–" He's standing so barely inside the door that Liam can't swing it closed again. He shrugs and his shoulders don't go back down the whole way. He's got his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket. He shouldn't be able to make himself look smaller than he already is. "Can I borrow your floor for the night?"

Zayn's been homeless for more than a year, since he got fired from his last full-time job. He stays with friends and acquaintances and particularly giving strangers, camping out on sofas or the floor. Everyone is really blasé about the whole thing. They call it a couch tour. They seem to think it's okay that Zayn can carry the vast majority of his life in a backpack.

Liam offered his couch once, when they were still recording and Zayn had gotten in a fight with the girl he was staying with. He knew it was a terrible idea even before he opened his mouth, to make himself available like that, to give that particular inch. But Zayn had told him no. He'd shrugged it off and said he was okay, he had a place to crash already lined up. Liam hadn't offered again and Zayn hadn't asked.

He'd thought of it as their line in the sand. Maybe he'd been offended by Zayn's dismissal more than he'd been relieved not to have him sleeping on the couch. He's not sure what to think now.

Liam should probably blow it off as no big deal. Ask if he likes crime dramas and microwave a second lasagna. But so far as barriers go, theirs had been a good one. Because Liam isn't punk, whatever the fuck that even means. He doesn't think it's okay that Zayn wears more than half of his entire wardrobe and spends what little money he has on cigarettes and that the kindness of strangers sometimes keeps him from sleeping in squats.

Liam doesn't have any tattoos and he doesn't like Screeching Weasel and he doesn't want to be a stop on a couch tour.

"Zayn." He grips the doorknob tight enough to be aware of the tendons in his hand.

"It's cool. It's fine. You don't have to," he says. He nods a bit and bites his lip. "I know you don't like me that much. I know you think–" He gives a quiet bark of a laugh and looks up finally to look Liam in the eye. "I know you think I'm garbage. 'Cause I don't care about the shit you care about, but–"

Liam touches him on the shoulder of his filthy jacket and kisses him.

In retrospect, maybe this was their line in the sand.


End file.
